Monitoring of respiratory activity in a patient is desirable in clinical situations since death or brain damage can occur within minutes of respiratory failure. As respiratory failure can be difficult to predict, continuous monitoring of respiratory activity is particularly beneficial in high-risk situations. Appropriate monitoring equipment saves lives. Moreover, respiratory monitoring equipment can also be useful for non-critical care, including exercise testing and different types of cardiac investigations.
A patient's respiratory activity can be monitored by an acoustic respiratory monitor. An acoustic respiratory monitor can include one or more acoustic sensors that can be positioned on a patient's body to obtain acoustic respiratory information from a patient for analysis. In some cases, the acoustic sensors may be positioned to detect tracheal sounds, which can be heard at the suprasternal notch or at the lateral neck near the pharynx or at another location on the patient.